Angela DesBarres
Angela retired (June 2021) from Grande Prairie Public School Division after 32 years of service as a classroom teacher, academic support, teacher librarian, administrator, AISI coordinator and the last 10 years as Director of Teaching and Learning. She has a Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta and a Master of Science in Education with a focus in Elementary Literacy and Reading from Walden University. Her desire to obtain her Masters’ degree stemmed from the desire to assist those students who were struggling to read and write. It was during that time she was teaching grade one students and later academic support. From there her passion for best practices in literacy began and continues to grow.
Angela currently teaches for the Teacher Education North Program at Northwestern Polytechnic in Grande Prairie. Here she works to inspire new teachers to be lifelong learners and to be consistent in their focus of meeting all students and their learning needs. She is passionate in supporting teachers to become confident in their abilities to promote student success by implementing research based best practices, instructional strategies and good assessment. She believes that teaching is the ability to first know your students and to know where you need to take them. Know your curriculum, have a toolbox of research based best practices and assessments and then draw on these to meet the needs of your students. Optimum learning for all students is our goal!